The week before the big night...

...rather unbelievably we actually have a concert next week. It has sort of appeared from nowhere due, presumably, to the way life speeds up as you get older. When I was six a month seemed to last a couple of years especially if my birthday or Christmas was coming up. Now days run quicker and quicker until life becomes a bit of a blur. And on that philosophical (actually slightly melancholy) note, we begin.

Big thanks to wonderful Claire 2 for stepping so ably into the breach last week. Cheers chick! Well I arrived back from my travels (after a slightly terrifying journey up the legendary Bealach Na Ba and a restful holiday in Wester Ross) and was immediately thrown into the small group piece Miserere Nostri'. Well, it must be said that it was much better than one might have imagined, especially since two of those involved had never sung it before and none of us had sung it for about three years. Perhaps not quite good enough for a concert yet (the sopranos were in perfect canon throughout but we have a tendency to leave everyone else behind), but certainly there is potential.

After a dash of jolly yoga and some silly noise-based warmup led by this Blogstress we embarked upon our pre-concert rehearsal at Priestfield Church. It is always exciting to hear the pieces in an acoustic without so much carpet and last night was no exception. A-L's rather staggering top note in the Tormis (sorry, I regret I cannot tell you which one as in my small mind they all merge together to form one loud Estonian cacophony - that sounds like a a meat-based stew, no? Anyone for a bowl of Estonian cacophony?) sounded particularly brilliant. The Debussy is also coming on and sounded pretty good. We are still perfecting the beginning and Maestro Boy told us to put our tongue on our alveolar ridge (or something like that). That Maestro Boy, what a card! I still have no idea what he was talking about.

Maestro Boy was full of useful advice for his ever-eager followers, including imagining that a Martian was holding a piece of string attached to the tops of our heads. I think it was meant to encourage us to stand tall, but it left me with a scary image of the day the Martians (or indeed any form of extra-terrestrial life) take over our small planet and control us with a length of twine and some well adjusted knots. Terrifying!

What kind of mouth shape should we aim for when singing particularly difficult vowel sounds I hear you cry. Well, I am glad you asked as Maestro Boy had further words of wisdom for us. Apparently you should pout like a duck. No, I found that one difficult to follow too. Do ducks pout? Well, there is a question. I would imagine so, especially when passing full length mirrors or when a particularly handsome mallard with his green plumage waddles by.

His final nugget was directed at the tenors (I believe) during Crucifixus, when he encouraged them to "just wing it". Righto! It must be said that winging an 18th Century piece, in Latin, in 8 parts is slightly easier said then done, but I think the words of advice were welcomed anyways.

So with a week to go the Rudsambee-lets are looking forward to a great gig at the Portrait Gallery next Thursday. There are a number of good reasons why you should come:

1) It is straight after work at 6.
2) It is a nice building with a rather startling acoustic.
3) It is free (bargain, you can't get cheaper than that blog fans).
4) The music will be good.
5) We are beginning with two Tormis pieces which, for an audience, is a little like jumping into a cold Scottish loch in March - a bit of a shock but ultimately satisfying and exhilarating.
6) Apparently there's some art nearby in case you're early.

So we'll see you all there then. The week after is one of our infamous Rudsambee parties. Robin (who will soon be moulding the finest minds of the young generations - congrats on getting into teaching training, pal!) and I will be bringing Guitar Hero along. Oh yes, the photographs courtesy of Chief Blog Editor are sure to be spectacular.

Until next week, when in all likelihood you will get two posts for the price of one. As this blog is free, that is not a great deal of outlay for you!

CSW

More Blogstuff by Claire2

Firstly, Blog-friends, I feel I should mention that tomorrow today (March 19th) is the birthday of our Great Leader and should, therefore, be a day off for Rudsambeeites and their faithful followers. Perhaps we should present a petition to this end (or to parliament, whichever is easier). I’m sure Authority would be sympathetic to our cause. Don’t ask me for his exact age as I’m not sure. Let it simply be said that he is very young indeed but wears the cloak of responsibility like the old man he closely resembles. (A joke G.L. if you are reading this, a small jest in honour of your special day!)

I do know the exact age of Jenny’s mother – to the year anyway, if not the day. She is... no, I shan’t say. How rude that would be. Anyway, she is not too old to do 80 sit-ups every morning, which is extremely impressive and led to some discussion about stomachs and bouncing balls but the less said about that, the better.

There were no cows or choir-socks in evidence tonight but a large frog made his (her?) debut as breath-control instructor. Unfortunately for this well-travelled but interestingly reticent amphibian the demonstration involved being squashed under a tray depressed by Sebastian’s large foot (his small one would have nothing to do with such cruelty). Once the pressure was removed, the flattened frog puffed back up and thus illustrated how we should breathe in, in a relaxed, unlaboured fashion. Chris pointed out, somewhat querulously, that he had stood on a frog once (perhaps it had failed to turn into a prince and required punishment) but that it hadn’t bounced back...

We were slightly down on numbers tonight – I presume everyone missing had a good excuse, hmmm? – but worked quite hard all the same, preparing for out Portrait Gallery concert on April 2nd. (Is that the right date? Don’t have my diary to hand. Or my memory, it seems). At one point Ollie had us stamping and clapping and huh-ing and hey-ing, adding and subtracting movements and sounds and thoroughly testing our co-ordination skills. The results were amusing to say the least – from where I was standing, anyway. (The basses: bless them!) I do feel however, and have often suggested, that we should add some dancing to our repertoire. A few of our pieces are crying out for choreography. Really. For one blissful moment tonight I thought Ollie had decided to go for it - but no. No-one ever listens to me.

Claire 1, diva-extraordinaire, (who seems to think that I will just stand in now whenever she has better things to do than blog – or, indeed, attend rehearsal) will return with her ready wit and much better eye-for-detail and ear-for-the-ridiculous next week but thank you, all, for listening/reading. Until my next opportunity, this is your replacement blogetteer signing off and sending love and kisses as luvvie people do xx

'We'll just have to go for three encores'

...the reaction, blog fans, to Maestro Boy's set list for the Portrait Gallery concert which is long, considering it is only supposed to be half an hour. And to top it off we are dusting down good ol' Misere Nostri. I must admit I balked slightly the suggestion of resurrecting this one; my most nervous moment as a Rudsambee-let was just before a gig in Lochcarron (I believe) when this testing little piece made me feel sick and shaky. However, I now have Helen on the top line with me and feel much less concerned. We'll see how we go with this one. The set list contains a lot of Tormis, a wee bit of Part jolliness and the Gaelic set!

Well, I must make a mention of Oliver2's rather brilliant musical socks. They have treble clefs on them and everything, although they don't actually sing. We more than made up for the lack of warbling foot fashion with our own musical fun.

It was a night noticeable for Anne's madness (which I promised not to mention but in my commitment to investigative journalism...). It was rather funny as, and anyone who knows her will vouch for this, Anne ALWAYS knows what she is doing, what is going on and EXACTLY what note we are singing at any given moment. Trust me, if it weren't for Anne a number of us would still be wandering around the Czech countryside, struggling across train tracks with nothing but a bottle of strong drink and a chocolate wafer treat as companions. However last night she excelled herself by being the only Rudsambee-let who couldn't work out where on earth we were going from in 'Green Fir Forest'. Cue much hilarity.

In fact it was a night of laughter as we returned to Envoi (that wacky one about butterflies where the second sops slowly pass out as they do that strange breathing thing towards the end - surely composer Betinis was a disgruntled alto or a cocky top sop to put that one in). We did a wee bit of practice on the soprano melody (I do indeed use that word loosely). When I suggested that the second sops had always made a particular phrase up, I was proved unswervingly correct (a rare experience, blog fans!), as we descended into musical rubbishness and Jen laughed like a drain (I don't know if I've ever shared this on Relative Pitch, but this phrase concerns me - I have never seen a laughing drain and feel I am missing out. [Susan kindly offers this]). Eventually we cracked it but not until we had been duly awarded the Most Pathetic Divas Award 2009.

We finished in true Groundhog Day style in exactly the same way as last week - the small/large group singing Star of the County Down. Jen seemed to sing something about the Nile at one stage. I may be wrong but I am not sure that the longest river in Africa (a bit of general knowledge for you there - I'll give you that for free, put your money away!) has anything to do with this traditional folkie number. As up-and-coming-blogstress Claire 2 said, the piece may well be improved with some stereotypical Egyptian moves - I'll leave you to imagine that one.

Last night we also welcomed Natalie back after her sabbatical. Great to see you lady. Anyways, I am away next week so hopefully Claire 2 will stand in and write something profound, thought-provoking and potentially life-changing. Brillig!

CSW

'The problem with the French is that we all have an opinion'

So we begin this evening's post with a quotation from our hostess with the mostess, Susan. Great line! She didn't mean, I hasten to add, that we all have an opinion about the French (e.g. that they wear stripy jumpers, cook perfectly and own a number of stylish berets) but rather about the French language. She is right of course, as last night's conversation illustrated. After a brief sing through of the Debussy I decided to head for a wee comfort break. As I left the room a discussion arose as to the correct way to say regarder. Upon rejoining the rehearsal the conversation was still in full flow and no definitive answer had yet been reached. Apparently we should watch our dipthongs. Now I don't even know what a dipthong is, but I will endeavour to keep an attentive eye on it.

So we began our rehearsal with a jazzed up version of the Jungle Book classic I wanna be like you led by our own King of the Swingers, Arno. Genius! We then spent a long while on our Chinese piece, Green Fir Forest. Mostly, I must admit, we battled with the words which are complicated to say the least. Fortunately we don't have as many opinions about Chinese as we do about French so screaming arguments about polite discussion on the subject of correct pronunciation was kept to a minimum, with conversation largely dominated by questions like "is 'e' pronounced 'ee' or 'e' or 'uh'?". You get the general drift. Anyways, we are making quite good progress with this one all in.

We then moved on to the Debussy. Jen said that the sopranos "are very smooth". I think she meant musically or at least rhythmically, but I would suggest that our smoothness extends to our general demeanour. Anyway, we are finally starting to add some dynamics to this which must mean we are increasing in confidence.

And finally we listened to the small group version of Star of the County Down [NB we sound better than this]. I have heard wafts of this over the weeks but last night was the first time we experienced it in all its jazzy wonderment. It must be said though that these Rudsambee-lets haven't quite got the hang of the 'small group' concept. There were only five of us in the audience so actually the small group is, well, a large group! This group (affectionately now christened 'Rudsamwee' by this blogstress. Genius!) did a great job of this folky number and Robin even said it made him proud to be Irish (I think he wiped a tear from his eye, sipped at his Guinness and danced a short jig at this point but I couldn't be sure).

We ended the evening's revelries by flying two remote controlled helicopters around the living room. They were a little like two giant bugs I was chased by once across a car park in Kenya, so I must admit I was a little afeared. Helen was excellent at it though and definitely won my prize...if I had a prize...which I don't.

Anyways, that's all for now lads and lasses (goodness I had a Preab san ol moment there). Apologies to both the French and the Irish this evening as I appear to have made crass generalisations about both our two closest neighbours - good one C. I'm off to listen to John Wetton loudly through my new ipod speakers. Nice...

CSW

Honestly, we love the altos...

I begin my post with such an edifying and uplifting statement due to last night's alto bashing. All in jest I might add, but, where sopranos are diva-ish and high maintenance, altos are generally sensitive souls. The altos took particular offense when Maestro Boy decided that the sopranos should split rather than the altos because the middle ladies' line is a 'd' and is a little high. Apparently first altos are very touchy about suggestions that they struggle on the top notes.

Anyways, I will start with a little plug as Maestro Boy is performing in what I hear is a startling and thought-provoking musical version of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner . I have completely brilliant images of dancing albatrosses in sparkly lycra doing a big finale number on some Hollywood-style stage steps [Chris hereby gives up on trying to find appropriate linkages]. Oh man, that will stay with me for the duration. I am guessing that Maestro Boy's version is not quite the spangly performance of Fame-esque loveliness that is currently whirling round my head.

On another note, the latest news on the keyboard saga. As you may know (if you read this blog as avidly as you should then you are well up to date with this ongoing crisis) we have had some problems with our little Casio keyboard over the past few weeks. It gradually died and Douglas brought us a new one. In fact it looked even more retro than the last one. Fab! However, last night it decided to create its own musical soundscape, as whenever Maestro Boy switched it on, it made a peculiar flatulent noise. I wonder if the Kings Singers have similar instrumental problems. Actually at one point it even sounded like a cow... it's those pesky cows again, interrupting our weekly musical soiree even when not prompted by A-L.

And so to music. We spent quite a bit of time tonight on our new Chinese (yes fans, another day, another language) song Green Fir Forest. We went through the pronunciation and sang it through a couple of times and it sounded perfectly acceptable by the end.

And, of course, no Wednesday night would be complete without a bit of Tormis, so Lulling it was. Now this piece has a wordy alto part and everyone else can relax into a sway by singing 'By you' (phonetic spelling for those stupid people who don't speak Estonian) over and over again. We all sounded beautiful, especially the altos (another point of alto encouragement). The only potential danger with this one is that you just carry on singing 'By you' ignoring entirely the panicked waving hand of Maestro Boy and the glares of choir members. You just get into the rhythm - like press-ups, but slightly less painful, at least for us if not for our audience.

Heads up to Blogger-in-waiting Claire 2 who left early as she was feeling a little poorly. Hope you are better now lovely lady. Quite a bit of sickness around the Rudsambee-lets recently so get well all. I'm off to listen to the Buggles' classic hit Elstree after Geoff played it so brilliantly last Saturday. Genius!

Until next week: friends, Romans and countrymen, you need not lend me your ears (or eyes) any longer.

CSW

This rock chick is back!

Cheers to Claire 2 (who can I add is an infinitely better actress and creator of striking jewellery than your regular blogstress) who took the metaphorical reins in my absence on Saturday. Fab, matey! Sounds like Rudsambee had a rather marvellous day.

As promised (or threatened, depending on which way you look at it) a brief (I focus on the word 'brief' here - it could be decidedly non-brief if you liked) nod to the general greatness of Messrs John Wetton and Geoff Downes who played a seriously legend gig in London last weekend. May I say that I even wore a faux-leather jacket for the occasion and looked every inch the rock chick, especially cheering on the riffing prowess of the fabulous Dave Kilminster who could even flick his hair in true rock star fashion while in the middle of a particularly tough prog axe moment.

Anyways, I'll be back tomorrow (or Thursday if the blogstress is too sleepy upon her return to Warden mansions) for the lowdown on another night with 'Cloudburst'. The Rudsambeelets (I see in Claire 2's post) have learnt a couple of new pieces in my absence. So yours truly will be struggling to keep up tomorrow and hoping that A-L sings loudly in my left ear so I can sing a fraction behind. Time to get back to being a choral chick as well as a rock chick.
Until tomorrow then, I am off for a snooze.
CSW

Bloggish stuff: Saturday Feb 21st 2009

OK, so testing, testing 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3 – keep up, tenors.

This is Claire2 speaking. An older, wiser (yes, debatable, I know) Claire and more of a drama-queen than a diva (but if ever you tire of that role, 1st lady, I feel sure I could play it with equal conviction though probably with less assurance on the top notes).

So, haven’t we had a day? A full day’s rehearsal – well, six hours. Maybe five and a half – but we had to get up in the morning to be there and some of us (Ollie the Great Leader, for one, Chris for two and Helen for three) only just made it and, I’m afraid, looked rather like they’d missed out on morning ablutions and general grooming procedures in order to arrive at anything close to the right time.

I had offered to wake up everyone’s minds and bodies with a silly ball game to start the day. We played said silly game. What did we learn from this activity? Rudsambee members can count up to 20 but only with great difficulty and they certainly struggle with counting, looking and listening all at the same time – which may explain a good deal... Add in the demand for throwing and catching skills and the majority of the time will be spent, I fear, with at least half the group on hands and knees (bums inelegantly in air), rummaging under chairs for tennis balls gone AWOL. We proved ourselves expert at the hardest stage of the game, however - (hard = movement required – never popular) which suggests to me there may have been some cheating going on... but far be it from me to turn judgemental and accusatorial. I am, after all, simply your replacement blogetteer.

How am I doing, btw?

Then we sang. Then we had lunch. Then we sang again. Then we went home. Ta-dah!

(Claire’s supper break).



(Now I’m back. With, you’ll be delighted to hear, more energy to complete this task. Here goes!)

The singing was good. We learned two new songs – Crucifixus for 8 voices (Antonio Lotti) which has something to do with cheese but I’m not sure what. I think the cheese are important (Ollie’s grammar leaves a lot to be desired). And also She Moved Through the Fair (Daryl Runswick) which has various very speedy twiddly bits, some of which are faster than others, all of which are confusing. But I enjoyed the sight-reading. Shall I repeat that? I enjoyed the sight-reading. I must be going down with something.

We also practised Hide and Seek and some bright spark (Susan) suggested we should, really, try to sing it off by heart so we dutifully gave it a go and, you know, it wasn’t at all bad. I can, at least, now report that Rudsambee does a fine line in the rabbit/headlights school of expression. I am planning to write a little ditty arranged for SATB on the subject of small, frightened leporid mammals in order to show off our skills in this area. I think it will be a winner.

We did quite a lot of Cloudbursting stuff, too. Clapping and slapping and clicking. (Well, as has many a time and oft been recorded in rehearsal, I CAN’T CLICK. Just as well I’m such a fine actress; nobody would ever guess my deficiency). Ollie is going to ‘encourage us with his face’ at some point during our Cloudburst rendition (which promises to be extraordinary). Do watch out for this if you are in the audience. Someone’s got to.

I can’t remember when it was but for one awful moment today I thought those bloody cows were back with us. 1, 2 moo, I heard; 1, 2 moo. Third time through I realised Ollie was saying ‘move’. Phew!

What else do I have to tell you? Oh, yes. We have a new Bass. Name of Angoh. An interesting chap. Looks much like Arno. Sings the same part. Think he’ll be rather good. He certainly worked very hard today all by himself. And he brought croissants for everyone so he’s obviously keen to be accepted.

I got the impression the GL was pretty pleased with how the day went and I certainly think we ought to do it more often. More space = more warm-up fun. I’m already planning for the next one...

All right, move over, Warden. I’m here to stay.

[Chris says: Susan took a photo which we need a good caption for. Any suggestions?]